Task-Related Differences in Children's Performance on Three Verbal Mediation Problems

The present study was an investigation of the generalizability of the theoretical construct verbal mediation. Sixty third-grade male and female Ss performed three tasks: category clustering, paired-associates (A-B, B-C, A-C paradigm), and intermediate-size transposition. These tasks have been theoretically related to mediational processes, since verbal mediation has been hypothesized to facilitate performance at each of the tasks. The performance data across the three tasks and intelligence test scores were submitted to a correlational analysis. None of the correlations were significantly different from zero. It was concluded that theoretical explanations derived from performance on one type of task may not generalize to describe performance on other related types of tasks.